As we get ready to ring in 2018 and say goodbye to 2017, we want to reflect briefly on the history of the New Year celebration and amuse you with some fun historical facts.

One of the most notable celebrations is that in Times Square in Manhattan.This has been an annual event in New York since 1907.

Nearly every television station will broadcast the “ball drop” in Times Square: A large, lighted crystal ball sliding down a 77-foot pole over the course of the last minute of the year.When the ball reaches the bottom, it is the New Year.

Hundreds of thousands of people make the trek to New York each year for this happening.It is the signature event of the New Year’s Eve celebration in the United States, and it is broadcast throughout the country and the world.

But how did this celebration originate?

According to a PBS article from December 30, 2013, the lighted crystal ball was the reaction to New York City banning fireworks as a public New Year’s display.Prior to 1904, the celebration in New York City was at the Trinity Church, with church bells ringing and fellowship.In 1904, the celebration moved north to the New York Times building.Fireworks were added to draw more people.

However, this celebration proved problematic with hot ashes dropping on the streets.Hence, the fireworks ban and the need for a new focal point for the celebration at the Times building.

The original ball was designed by Walter Palmer, the New York Times’s chief electrician.

From the PBS article, “(New York Times publisher and owner Adolph) Ochs commissioned the Artkraft Strauss sign company to create a 700-pound ball made of iron and wood with 100 25-watt light bulbs attached to its surface.At midnight, the ball descended down the repurposed mainmast of the battleship USS New Mexico, with a system of pulleys.”

Today, the ball that is dropped at the top of the Times Building is 11,875 pounds and 12 feet in diameter, with 2,688 Waterford Crystals that refract the lights of 32,256 light-emitting diode (LED) lights.Now the ball drop is completely controlled by computers

Other celebrations occur throughout the country, many of which are similar to the Times Square celebration.For example, Atlanta holds the same type of celebration with a giant lighted peach.

In Raleigh, North Carolina, they use a 900-pound brass acorn.

Other objects dropped in other parts of the country include a variety of animals, automobiles, fruit, vegetables, and even ping pong balls in Strasburg, Pennsylvania.

Another tradition is the singing of “Auld Lang Syne”.According a December 17, 2017 CNN article, the original poem was written by Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1788.Translated from the Scot language means “time goes bye”.Tying “Auld Lang Syne” to New Year’s Eve can be dated back as early as 1939, when Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians would perform the Scottish folk tune on New Year’s Eve. They kept it up annually until Lombardo’s death in 1979.

In Scotland, it’s traditional to perform this song not only on New Year’s Eve, but also at weddings and funerals.Finally, the tradition of college football on New Year’s Day.The “Tournament of Roses” day and parade were started in 1890.From the Rose Bowl Stadium website: “Following the parade, young men competed in foot races, tugs of war, and jousts and tourney of rings…”The first “Tournament of Roses East-West football game” was played January 2, 1902, between Michigan and Stanford.

After the lopsided Michigan victory, the game was not played again until 1916, when Washington State defeated Brown University.From this time until the era of modern corporate sponsorships, the game was simply referred to as the “Rose Bowl Game”.

Although the game continued annually after the 1916 contest, the original Rose Bowl stadium was not completed until 1923.It is the same stadium used for the Rose Bowl today, originally built in a horseshoe design and seating 57,000.Today it seats over 90,000, and the game has been sold out every year since 1936.​From our families to yours, we wish you a Happy New Year and prosperous 2018!!

Many joys come with Christmas and the holiday season.Good food, the company of family and friends, observing the joy of children opening presents, good music and the anticipation of the new year to name just a few.

A special aspect of the season for us is the spirit of giving.We use this time to provide more help than usual for both folks less fortunate and for charitable organizations that do good works in our communities.We know we are blessed to have the means to do so.

Unfortunately, at least one vital organization in our community that relies on this time of year for most of its funding is not receiving as much as in past years.That organization is the Salvation Army, which is assisted by organizations such as your local Kiwanis Clubs.

According to a recent Reno Gazette Journal article, their familiar Red Kettle campaign yield is down 13 percent compared to the income they received last season.They still have time to meet the goal, but only until December 23rd when this year’s campaign ends.

These donations to the local Salvation Army help support programs to assist people in need not only at Christmas, but throughout the year.They have very little overhead, and most of the dollar you give them goes to truly help people in need.

There’s an easy way for all of us to join the spirit of giving and help those less fortunate in our local community.We ask you to consider dropping a dollar in the Red Kettle the next time you are out at your local stores between now and Christmas.More if you are able, but at least a dollar.

And there are plenty of other ways to help.

A Veteran friend of ours is doing a private fundraiser at the last minute to help out a military family that would otherwise be going without a nice Christmas this year.This is neighbor helping neighbor, and stories like this warm our hearts.If you are interested in learning more, contact James at jwsmack@yahoo.com and he will put you in touch.

In addition to sending checks to nieces, nephew, other relatives and friends, you can also make donation in their names.It not only helps our community and deserving needy people; it also teaches the value of giving and helping your fellow man to the next generation.

And you can invite your senior citizen neighbors or others who may be alone during the holidays to have dinner with your family.That can be rewarding for you and that person.Even if the neighbor has the means, the company you can provide could make the difference for them between December 25th being just another day on the calendar and a lasting memory.

Another opportunity: Every Wells Fargo Bank location nationwide is collecting non-perishable food items for local food banks and the United Way until the end of the year.All you have to do is drop off your canned goods and other non-perishables at any local branch, and you can help your community and feel good about it at the same time.

This is also a great time of year to reach out to family and friends that you do not talk to very often.There may be needs close to you that you don’t realize, and it should feel good to talk to old friends and to relatives.For people who have the means, giving should be part of the holiday season.For those who do not have the means, your giving could provide a gift to a child who would otherwise go without.It might feed a family.It might help a senior citizen or a veteran.

Besides helping them, you will feel good about it, and you will help create a stronger community.

In closing, we look forward via this column to continuing to share our thoughts with you in the coming new year.From Ron, his wife Kathy, their daughter Karyn, Kathy’s mother Christena, and from James and his wife Vicki, we say Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa and a Happy New Year.​May this holiday and the next year bring you every happiness.

In the 100th anniversary of communism last month, three points stood out.

First, polls say half of America’s millennials would rather live under socialism or communism than capitalism.Second, the reality of communism was, horrifically, exactly the opposite of the naïve view held by today’s young and by many people around the world in the last century.

Third, the essential faults and failures of communism also characterize all government to some degree, especially democratic socialism, progressivism and statist liberalism.

The starry-eyed ignorance of communism’s supporters then and now stemmed from the false belief that capitalism (private property and free-market systems) are based upon and promote predatory behavior.So, they must be responsible for poverty, misery, exploitation and war.Communism and other coercive collectivism, in their view, are structured for equality, fairness, prosperity, peace and tranquility.

That was the premise and the promise.The reality?

Via famines and starvation caused by forced collectivization, plus executions, mass murder and war, state communism killed perhaps more than100 million people: 65 million in China, 30 million in Russia, and 10 million elsewhere.Further abuses included massive deportations, forced emigration, forced labor camps, police-state terror, and systematic and brutal denials of human rights, liberty and justice as part of their social engineering.

Ultimately, it collapsed from these monstrous facts and because it couldn’t provide economic growth and human wellbeing comparable at all to what private property and market systems do.Indeed, communism produced great equality only by making nearly everyone poor relative to living standards enjoyed under capitalism.

Even though hundreds of millions suffered or perished, many American young people embrace this nonsense due to their ignorance of history and the stupid, evil dogma they’ve been taught in our education systems.

The falseness of communism’s promises are seen in its reality as it unfolded in 1917’s Bolshevik revolution and others.Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels promised “from each according to his ability to each according to his need.”But Vladimir Ilyich Lenin said the ends justify the means – any means.Then Joseph Stalin in Russia, Mao Zedong in China, Pol Pot in Cambodia, the Kim dynasty in North Korea, plus Fidel Castro and other tyrants in Latin America, Africa and Asia took Lenin’s viciousness and ran amok with it.

The reason communism fails lies in the logic of Marx, Engels and Lenin that is essential to its actual practice.Marx and Engels sketched a long unrealistic plan of development that would require a dictatorship of the proletariat among other things before the nirvana of sweet, tranquil communism arrived.The practitioners had no patience for all that and believed they could take a short cut to the end state via especially harsh means.

The problem for communism is similar in kind to that of lesser forms of coercive collectivism, even if much worse in degree.Simply put, each system promises ultimately to deliver good results, but in order to get there it must first break a few eggs.This is the essential nature of all government: It promises to deliver net benefits to society, but in order to develop the means to deliver benefits, it must first do some human damage to real people.

Thus, public spending will help the needy and deserving poor and will provide the benefits of education, transportation systems, etc.But to do so, it must first tax people.Similarly, regulations will protect some people by diminishing rights of others.

The damage from taking money and rights from people is always unavoidable, but the benefits from subsidies, public goods and protection for others are uncertain and contingent.So, leftists, politicians and bureaucrats dwell on the promised benefits in order to obscure the uncertainty that purported benefits will actually materialize and will exceed the costs and damage necessitated by their plans.Limited-government libertarian conservatives are the adults who are focused on acknowledging the cost and damage and restraining government over-reach to assure that the actual benefits are greater than the costs.​Progressives and statist liberals chafe when one points out what they have in common with socialists and communists.But the further we go down their road, the more millennials will learn the truth of limiting government instead of being its booster.

Nevada was hit hardest among the 50 states by the Great Recession of 2007-09 and was the slowest to recover.It was the last state to see its total employment levels return to pre-recession figures – even though our population growth had already resumed.

Since nearly everyone agrees that high employment is good, you’d think a public policy change that increases employment is something politicians would embrace.From experience, we’re skeptical, but we offer here evidence for just such a change: reforming state occupation licensing laws.

Economics studies two competing rationales for occupation licensing: public interest and rent-seeking.Public interest is what folks learned in ninth-grade civics.Namely, individuals often don’t have enough information about sellers in a marketplace to avoid economic, health or safety damage from unqualified practitioners.So, requiring practitioners to pass an examination or otherwise show enough knowledge and experience before offering their services to the public in some areas makes sense.

Rent-seeking is one of those odd terms economists invent to mystify normal folks.In occupation licensing it means a conspiracy by incumbent practitioners – members of the club – to reduce the competition they face by keeping out as many would-be sellers as possible.A labor cartel.

For example, if one has an engineer’s license from California, instead of allowing her to merely register that license with the Nevada engineering board in order to practice here, the newbie must take again the examinations she already passed to get California’s license.If that were a sound policy, we’d require Nevada licensed engineers to retake those exams periodically, but we don’t.

Nevada registration is very burdensome, too, because it requires her to find the engineers who signed for her to take the exam in California -- perhaps 30 years ago -- and have them again submit reference letters for her.So there’s grounds for licensing some occupations, but the question is: Which ones and what are the reasonable requirements to get certified?Aye, there’s the rub.

Many studies have addressed these questions about various licensing requirements.As a whole, this empirical literature shows that many states have unreasonable requirements that work against the public interest by significantly reducing employment and economic growth while adding very little protection against economic, health or safety damage.However, as those restrictions work against the public interest, they benefit the incumbent practitioners by reducing competition and thus increasing consumer costs and reducing quality.

Some examples are notorious, such as the requirements in some places that people wanting to braid hair in cornrows must have full beautician licenses.All states license cosmetologists, but the number of hours of trainee experience required to take the exam varies from 1000 (over six months) to 2300 (nearly 15 months).Some states require cosmetologists to accumulate more training hours than life-saving emergency medical technicians (EMTs).

The latest major study in this area, by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, reviewed ten low- and moderate-income professions widely licensed around the country for which data are available.They are aesthetician, athletic trainer, cosmetologist, EMT, locksmith, manicurist, massage therapist, pest control worker, private detective and veterinary technician.Clearly, not all these occupations merit state registration.

First, the study developed an overall red-tape index for each state based on the fees, length of experience, number of exams and age requirements for these ten occupations.By this measure, Nevada was only third most hostile to allowing people into these professions, behind Tennessee and Alabama.

The authors also studied the estimated employment impacts from reducing each state’s current regulatory burden to that of Hawaii, which has the least severe restrictions.Nevada finished second to Tennessee and just ahead of Oklahoma and Louisiana.If Nevada used Hawaii’s requirements, we could increase employment 8.5 percent in these occupations.

No one study is definitive on the right occupation licensing requirements, and the authors note limitations on their results.But the entire literature shows that occupation licensing as a whole favors incumbent producers over consumers and the public interest.

Many people move to Nevada every year, but our occupation licensing restrictions discourage not only those ten occupations but also the teachers, engineers, accountants, doctors and nurses, etc. we need.Something the next governor and legislature should consider.​